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The latest budget and tax news page is constantly updated.

The "Debt Total" bar chart is generated from the Treasury Department's "Debt Report" found on the Treasury Direct web site. It has links to search the debt for any given date range, and access to debt interest information. It is a direct source to government provided budget information.

Suppose you spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow (ie; use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you spend more than your income, another deficit, you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on your debt (now larger). If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.

"Reducing the deficit" is a meaningless soundbite. If the DEFICIT is any amount more than ZERO, we have to borrow more and the DEBT grows.

Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. Here is a direct link to the Congressional Budget Office web site. Check out the CBO's assessment of the Debt. We have to pay interest* on that huge, growing debt; and it dramatically cuts into our budget.

The above bar chart shows only expenditures; so here is an excellent graphic depicting federal income and outgo.

The Treasury Department has the third largest expense in the federal budget. Only Defense and entitlement programs (run by Departments of Health and Human Services, HUD, and Agriculture (food stamps)) spend more. As the debt increases, so does the interest payment. Entitlement spending is the largest item in our federal budget. Do you have "Compassion" for lower income earners?

In FY2015 the U. S. Treasury Department spent$402 Billion of your money on interest payments to the holders of the National Debt.
Compare that to NASA at $18B,
Agriculture at $139B,
Labor at $45,
Transportation at $75B!
Education at $90B

When you buy something, all the companies involved in producing and delivering it, were charged a wide range of taxes. Taxation costs are part of the price of everything you buy. The price of everything you buy will go up to cover any business tax increases. You are paying those corporate taxes! Read more about the proposed Energy Tax increases. So don't forget: the price of fuel is in the cost of everything.

The "Economic Stimulus" is shifting us from an "economic crisis" to a debt crisis! Consider this; if businesses could print their own money and give it away to customers so they could buy the products, many folks would be happy for a while; but the businesses would go bankrupt. Well, that's what our government is currently doing, printing and giving away money.

It has been reported that about 50% of Americans pay no income tax. But, if those folks buy anything, they pay "embedded taxes"*.
*[About 22% of the price of any product you buy is because of taxation on the companies that were involved in that product being produced and being at a place where it could be bought; and that's before local sales taxes were added.] Every company must cover ALL its costs (including taxation) in the price of its product; or it will go bankrupt.

Healthcare... some proponents want to pay for the new plan by taxing insurance companies. Insurance companies do not pay taxes. To a corporation, tax is just another cost. So policy premiums will go up to cover the cost.

Government Programs always cost more than originally predicted. What about Healthcare?

**The Government cannot provide anything to anyone without first taking money from someone else to pay for it.

NOTABLE QUOTES

"For society as a whole, nothing comes as a 'right' to which we are 'entitled'. Even bare subsistence has to be produced.... The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it... The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more the providers have to carry the load." Thomas Sowell, quoted in Forbes and Reader's Digest.

According to Mr. Kneeland, "...all dollars come from the people. Where do [you] think Coca-Cola gets the money to pay its taxes, Exxon gets its money to pay the Exxon Valdez fines, Denny's gets the money to pay its Justice Department fines, or even Microsoft gets the money to defend itself? It all ultimately can come from only one place, and that's from individuals." ED: When you buy a product, the price of that product has to cover ALL the costs to get that product to you.

"A politician cannot spend one dime on any spending project without first taking that dime from the person who earned it. So, when a politician votes for a spending bill he is saying that he believes the government should spend that particular dollar rather than the individual who worked for it." Neal Boortz.

"There is no such thing as government money - only taxpayer money." William Weld, quoted in Readers Digest.

"Who will provide the roof to protect you from the rain, the heat to comfort you from the cold, and the coffee to fill your stomach when the damn, greedy capitalists are all gone?" - David Berresford, Thursday, May 20, 2010, Canada Free Press.

SOCIAL SECURITY

is not part of the Federal Budget (General Fund). It is a separate account from the General Fund, and has its own source of income ("Payroll Tax"). Social Security payments go in the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF), and should NOT be counted as general revenue. The SSTF is supposed to be used to pay benefits. But, the Government is under NO OBLIGATION to pay Social Security benefits, and has even borrowed substantially from the SSTF for general operations!

As of August 2010, there is less being paid into the Social Security Trust Fund than is being paid out to beneficiaries. Social Security is now using its "surplus".

Other Government agencies borrowed from that trust fund, and now have to pay it back. But they already spent it! So how will they pay it back? Through bailouts and taxes. Here is a "must read" about the problem. Your payroll taxes are going into a bottomless hole!

The Government does not have any money, it does nothing to earn money (maybe defense). Government takes money from you and borrows more (from your children), then spends that! The bailouts of 2008 and 2009 are purely deficit spending. Expect to see enormous deficits in the forseeable future, leading to much more debt. Interest payments on that growing debt will become the largest item in the federal budget. On C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: "We are out of money."

In 1913, when the Federal Reserve was created with the duty of preserving the dollar, one 20-dollar bill could buy one 20-dollar gold piece. Today, fifty 20-dollar bills are needed to buy one 20-dollar gold piece. Under the Fed's custody, the U.S. dollar has lost 98 percent of its value. The dollar is the storehouse of our wealth. Has the Fed faithfully safeguarded that storehouse? Thomas Jefferson said, "In questions of power let us hear no more of trust in men, but bind them down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution."

Take The Crash Course. It is the world's most concise video seminar on how our economy, energy systems, and environment interact, and how they will impact the future.

Much news recently about the Federal Reserve Bank (FED). Just what is the "FED"? Here is a video. And here is an excellent FED discussion web site. While the ostensible purpose of the Federal Reserve is to stabilize the money supply, its real purpose is to enable public officials to spend as much money as they want by borrowing it and then letting the Federal Reserve pay off its creditors with newly printed, debased, cheapened, devalued dollars. - Campaign for Liberty, Jacob Hornberger, 29 April 2011.

Foreclosure? Short Sale? Principal Reduction? When a bank accepts less than the original loan value, bail-out money from your pocket pays for someone elses loan!

Have you seen the adds where credit card companies accept less than the owner owes? Bail out money from your pocket pays for someone elses purchases!

Here is a neat way to understand President Obama's proposed budget cuts.

The Federal Government doesn't do anything well. It's inefficient, wastefull, slow, prone to fraud, and ineffective. Examples? How well did the Securities and Exchange Commission monitor the Madoff situation; how well did FEMA handle Katrina; how well does the INS handle the immigration problem; how well the FDA inspects the food industry, the bailout fiasco.... Government cannot provide a service better than you can arrange it for yourself. Why would you trust the Federal Government to take care of your health or retirement? Government waste examples.

You are a taxpayer, the Government is taking your money from you and spending it. Is your money being spent the way you want it spent? Have you told your Representative, your Senators? The United States has the best Constitution in the world, but Congress is not paying attention to it. Is there a Constitutional Political Party? Why do we have such a complicated tax code? The tax code is a means to control behavior, it is the epitomy of government power.

* It's true that we have to pay interest on the National Debt. But some citizens own a portion of the national debt, in the form of savings bonds and other government bonds. So some of the interest payment goes to them. You may be one of them. You'd want to keep your interest income coming. But the interest payment is being paid by taxpayers, and you may be one of them also ... it's a tangled web, designed to keep you entangled!

Income Redistribution (aka socialism): Government takes money that you earned, from you and gives it to someone else. This happens when the tax money you are forced to give to the government is given to others for their use. Examples: Bailouts, Earned Income Credit, cash for clunkers, food stamps. Then, how do you give a tax break to lower scale wage earners that don't pay much income tax? You have to take it from the higher scale wage earners and give it to the lower scale wage earners. But wait, there's more.

The National Debt Awareness Center (NDAC) advocates reduction of the National Debt.

NDAC advocates replacement of federal income tax with a national retail sales tax: a Consumption tax rather that a production tax.

The National Debt, and interest payments on it must be paid by our children and grandchildren. Our government is stealing our children's money, but our children have not given approval; isn't that Child Abuse?

The National Debt Awareness Campaign (NDAC) was founded by Gene Simmons [not associated with KISS]. He currently serves as Director of the National Debt Awareness Center (NDAC). Contact NDAC by email. You are authorized to copy and freely distribute the bar chart and the information provided in this web site; please include a reference to this web site. If you want to link your web site, do it. "Information is the Currency of Democracy." [Another Thomas Jefferson quote.]